Liturgy in Byzantium and Beyond

Variorum
Robert F. Taft
ISBN: 0860784835
price: $122.95   hardcover

Liturgical ritual was a major element of the Christian cultures of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. This was especially true of Byzantium, where court and church ritual, often intertwined, achieved a splendor unparalleled by any other aspect of civic or religious life.
In this volume, Robert Taft has brought together a series of studies in the formation and development of these rites and on the meaning they had for contemporaries. Particular articles look at the role of Jerusalem, Constantinople, then Mt. Athos, and at the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Also included are two important studies focusing on the role of the Bema in the Syrian Church.
Contents: Preface; Sigla; The liturgy of the Great Church: an initial synthesis of structure and interpretation on the eve of Iconoclasm; The pontifical liturgy of the Great Church according to a twelfth-century diataxis in codex; The authenticity of the Chrysostom anaphora revisited. Determining the authorship of liturgical texts by computer; Mount Athos: a late chapter in history of the "Byzantine rite"; In the bridegroom's absence: the Paschal triduum in the Byzantine Church; A tale of two cities: The Byzantine Holy Week Triduum as a paradigm of liturgical history; Some notes on the Bema in the East and West Syrian traditions; On the use of the Bema in the East-Syrian liturgy; The interpolation of the Sanctus into the Anaphora: when and where? A review of the dossier; Additional notes and comments; General index; Index of manuscripts.